Tonga's Good Girls and Bad Boys

The dorm girls on our campus wanted to provide service for us by washing our car.....

But it got out of hand rather quickly with a lot of water and laughter.

Today was historical for us senior missionaries.  Siope Akau'ola, pictured above left, made arrangements to take a group of us to visit the Tongan Prison.  Tours have never been allowed in the 40 year history of this prison, and visitors are never allowed in the cell areas or on much of the grounds, but have to do their visits in a special building.  Siope is a miracle of a man who had an article written about him in the January 2015 Ensign--"The Road to a Forever Family".  He was an unhappy drunk who followed a happy, laughing loving family to church, watched through an open window and decided he could have a better life for his family.  They were eventually baptized, sealed in the temple and started helping others, taking in unfortunate children, converting them and helping them to find work, sometimes in his donut shop, sometimes odd jobs in the neighborhood to pay for middle school, high school and missions.  He now has 20 living in his small home, and 5 others who lived with him have gone onto school or missions.

One of the girls he took in (Ofa) has a father who has been in prison for 9 years for inciting the riots of 2006 in which much of downtown Nuku'alofa (the capitol of Tonga) was burned.  The father, who is pictured above on the right, was very appreciative of Siope's caring for and converting his daughter to the LDS faith.  The father is the only inmate in the medium security area whose cell is never locked.  He has become as a chaplain to prisoners who are spending their 1st month there and has gained the trust of the prison officials, and may have had some influence in allowing us to come in and visit the entire prison, where we were allowed to take photos of all except the interior of the maximum security building which is also in the photo above.  In this building there was only one inmate in a very small, hot cell, concrete floor, and no chair or bench.  the worst parts of this building were the "cages" on broken concrete with no roof overhead, just metal wiring, exposed to the elements, and no toilet or water.  When prisoners misbehave, this is where they are taken, and we were told that the public has never been allowed to see inside this building.  On the floor of one of the cells prisoners had carved, "only God can judge me".  On the walls:  "no repent,  never surrender".  The rest was in Tongan.

Inside Minimum security area, where they had a cable TV showing a violent machine gun shootout with Police.

Make your own checker game on the concrete floor.  All you need is some paint and bottlecaps

This prisoner actually lived in American Falls at one time.

Typical cell

This is considered the prison CONDO.  If prisoners have an excellent record of behavior, they have a chance to live in this lovely building, where they can sleep up off the floor on a foam pad.

Many of the prisoners are required to work on the prison farm which is outside of this prison wall.  They work to grow crops, which they sell at the prison market as well as the main market downtown.  The equivalent of US $150,000 in crops first goes to the government, then they are allowed to keep the rest for their personal food.